After a little over seven years of writing about manga, Japanese literature, and related items of interest here at Experiments in Manga, I am now largely retiring the blog. The content that’s here will remain for the foreseeable future, and I will continue to respond to any comments that are made, however I will no longer be regularly posting at the blog. It’s possible that I may very occasionally be inspired to write a long-form review or feature for Experiments in Manga, but in general my manga blogging will be moving to Manga Bookshelf proper. There I will continue participating in the Manga the Week of and Pick of the Week posts and will be contributing to the Bookshelf Briefs features as well. Another place that I will be found discussing manga and such is on Twitter, where I hope to be a little more active with my account going forward.

A huge thank you to everyone who has read and supported me and Experiments in Manga over the years! In part I started this blog as a way to connect with other people interested in manga. I am delighted that I can say I was successful in doing that. I have met so many wonderful people because of Experiments in Manga and it makes me tremendously happy to know that from time to time others found it useful, interesting, or even entertaining. To all of my friends–readers, fellow bloggers, creators, and more–thank you and thank you again. Writing at Experiments in Manga and getting to know you all has meant more to me than I can adequately express.

Since in a few weeks I will be retiring Experiments in Manga, this will be the final Bookshelf Overload posted here. However, I am thinking of ways that I might be able to feature some of the interesting media that I find by leveraging my Twitter account more effectively. As for the things that found their way into my home in November, I once again picked up more anime than I generally do. (Granted, two of those, Skip Beat! and Mind Game were the results of Kickstarters that I supported way back when.) November saw the release of several debuts that I was particularly excited about, including ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department, Volume 1 by Natsume Ono, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Omnibus 1 by Hikaru Nakamura, To Your Eternity, Volume 1 by Yoshitoki Oima (okay, technically it was released on the last day of October), as well as the Parasyte tribute anthology Neo-Parasyte M. I also recently discovered that a small publisher based out of Yokohama, Black Hook Press, is releasing gekiga manga in translation, such as Takashi Fukutani’s Dokudami Tenement. One more acquisition from November that I’d like to highlight is Denise Schroeder’s The Good Prince, Volume 1 which collects the first three chapters of that webcomic. My introduction to Schroeder’s work was through the utterly charming comic Before You Go, so I’m happy to get my hands on more of her work in print.

As the winner, Dawn (whose terrific Anime Nostalgia Podcast also happens to be hosting a giveaway right now) will be receiving the first volumes of Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju by Haruko Kumota, Kigurumi Guardians by Lily Hoshino, Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ichikawa, and Love & Lies by Musawo, all of which debuted in English from Kodansha Comics this past year. In addition to its print releases, Kodansha Comics has also had a particularly good showing in 2017 digitally. And so for this giveaway, I asked participants to tell me a little about their own reading habits and preferences when it comes to print versus digital manga. The responses were really great, so be sure to check out the giveaway comments!

Assuming that I didn’t miss any (I’m sure I have and some of the digital titles probably haven’t even been revealed yet), Kodansha Comics had twenty print debuts last year (most if not all of which are also available digitally) and forty-five digital debuts (a few of which will eventually be released in print, too). By the end of the year, Kodansha Comics will have debuted more than sixty-five new titles in addition to its other continuing series! It’s great to see how much is being published in English these days in print and digitally, and not just by Kodansha Comics. Thank you to everyone who shared your reading preferences with me! Both digital and print manga have their pros and cons, so I found all of your responses very interesting. I hope to see you again at the end of December for one last giveaway here at Experiments in Manga!

Another month, another mountain of media that somehow made its way into my possession! (Actually, I know exactly how.) Thanks to some fantastic sales, I finally got around to filling in the gaps in my collection of Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond. I also ended up buying more anime than I usually do, too. In particular, Sentai Filmworks announced back in September that it would be discontinuing DVDs and has since been working to clear out stock. Since my eyesight is poor enough that I don’t usually notice a difference in visual quality between DVD and Blu-ray releases, I took the opportunity to pick up Space Brothers and a few other things at a greatly discounted price. As for October manga debuts, I was greatly impressed by Spirit Circle, Volume 1 by Satoshi Mizukami. I was also really looking forward to the release of Yokai Rental Shop, Volume 1 by Shin Mashiba since I enjoyed the creator’s earlier series Nightmare Inspector. Notably, manga translator and yokai scholar Zack Davisson released a new work in October, too–Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan is one of the newest titles from Chin Music Press, a publisher that takes great care with physical production and design, so in addition to being interesting, it’s also a beautiful book.

As the winner, Candy will be receiving the first volume of Izumi Tsubaki’s manga series Oresama Teacher as released in English by Viz Media’s Shojo Beat imprint. I’m behind the times and only recently started reading Oresama Teacher but I’ve been enjoying it tremendously. In particular, the series reminded me of how much I enjoy manga about delinquents, so for this giveaway I asked participants to tell me a little about their favorite delinquents from manga. As usual, I’ve gathered together a list of manga below, but be sure to check out the giveaway comments for everyone’s individual responses.

Once again, the above list isn’t at all comprehensive, but it does include a variety of different types of manga. Delinquents show up in sports manga, speculative fiction, boys’ love, romance, comedy, drama, and more. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the giveaway by sharing your favorite manga delinquents with me. I’m already thinking ahead to the next monthly giveaway and hope that you’ll all join me in the fun again!